The Association of Italian Permanent Parks - Federturismo Confindustria has appealed in recent days to European Commission and promoted aparliamentary question to evaluate the legitimacy of the Italian legislation regulating automated ticketing systems, in light of the regulations on free competition in the internal market of the Union. Legislation which, according to downward estimates, would generate every year losses of 15 million euros in terms of lost ticket revenue, for a total damage of over 100 million euros, also considering ancillary revenues, linked for example to catering and merchandising, in favor of parks in other European countries.
Maurizio Crisanti, national secretary of the Italian Permanent Parks Association, declares: “This is a regulation without equal in Europe which must be subjected to profound simplification. It imposes technical and formal constraints that make it effectively impossible for Italian parks to distribute tickets on international e-commerce platforms, some of which sell over 120 million park tickets worldwide every year. In addition to lost revenue, we note competitive damage, because parks in other European countries can make use of this distribution channel. It is therefore not possible to compete on equal terms with companies from other Member States."
The problem is known and has been reported to the Revenue Agency: among the most restrictive regulations, the limit of 10 tickets for a single online transaction and the obligation to certify the entire sales process through the “opt-in” system, that is, entering a code received via SMS to confirm the purchase, which, in addition to limiting sales potential, offers a terrible shopping experience.
“It will be interesting to know the evaluations of the Commission, called to express its opinion within six weeks – adds the president of the Association, Luciano Pareschi – especially in reference to the impossibility for Italian parks to compete in Europe. Ours is a country with a tourist vocation: there are parks with over 30% of foreign customers who are used to purchasing tickets online before departure on e-commerce platforms. Between inflation, skyrocketing interest rates and continuous investments in innovation, the Italian parks industry cannot be penalized in its growth potential".
With the parliamentary question we want to stimulate the Italian institutions to finally objectively address the limits of a secondary regulation, created to limit the phenomenon of secondary ticketing, and also erroneously applied to the parks sector, which it is not subject to touting and resale at a higher price. A regulation which at the moment has the only effect of limiting sales and the flow of foreign guests in Italian amusement parks.
